Philippe Clement unhappy at Rangers kick-off time and flips at Hibs penalty

Incensed Philippe Clement has defended John Souttar and insists Hibs should never have been awarded a penalty.

The Rangers boss watched his side grind out a 1-0 win at Ibrox, with Tom Lawrence's first-half wondergoal proving the difference. The visitors wasted the chance to hit an equaliser moments before half-time as Jack Butland saved Mykola Kukharevych's weak penalty.

Ref Nick Walsh overturned his own on-field decision by eventually pointing to the spot after a VAR review as John Souttar was penalised for blocking Kuharevich's goal-bound shot with his arm. But Clement claims there was nothing Souttar could do to get his arm out of the way.

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Clement raged: "My question is why is that a penalty? You have a player who goes in duel, turns himself and puts his leg up to go to the ball, so he's wide. At that moment, he sees the other one who gets the contact, he makes himself smaller to put his arm in front of him and then the ball touches him and his arm goes up in that way.

"In that short distance, I've seen situations in the last couple of weeks where there were people with their arm out of their body and no penalty. It was discussed before this season not to give easy penalties for short distance in those moments. So for me, it's not a penalty.

"He cannot put his elbow against his body when you turn yourself and you go with your leg up. You cannot put your arm somewhere in your body, so he makes himself smaller to not be coming in like that. As a player, you cannot do more and it's from one-and-a-half meters that this ball comes.

"So no, I think it was really clear in the discussion with managers and referee department that these situations were not penalties. So yeah, I expect that conclusion will be made during the week, but it can happen. It's always human decisions."

Clement also aimed a swipe at this afternoon's 12noon kick-off time in the wake of Thursday night's Europa League win in Sweden.

Reflecting on the game, he said: "It's very important to take the three points and be the team that's on the ball most of the time. It's a hard afternoon and we knew that. It's also the earliest hour that you can play after a European game, to play at 12pm.

"So we came back from Malmo at around 2am in the morning so players lose a lot of sleep there and you have not much sleep now also because you have to wake up early again today. So in recovery, it's not perfect and then you need to dig in, show quality and in a lot of parts we did.

"Some moments I saw less freshness with some players than the last couple of weeks but it's normal. I spoke about consistency and it's about consistency in results. So getting another clean sheet, another three deserved points, that's a massive victory."